


The Alchemist

by Dirty20 (transarchivist)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abortion, Angst, Background Beau/Jester, Beau-Centric, Blood, Body Dysphoria, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Morning Sickness, Past Abortion, Past Beau/Reani, Unplanned Pregnancy, background beau/yasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:21:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22817692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transarchivist/pseuds/Dirty20
Summary: Something is wrong with Beau’s body, which is wrong in of itself. Every fibre of muscle and every bone and ligament is what she made of it. They’ve never disagreed on something before.________________Beau is pregnant. She doesn’t want to be. She doesn’t want to talk about it.Nott doesn’t want to talk about it either.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Nott
Comments: 15
Kudos: 105





	The Alchemist

**Author's Note:**

> Content Notes:  
> This isn’t a whump, it’s about friendship between women and ending an unwanted pregnancy, but it does describe a relatively unsafe abortion and complicated relationships with one’s own body, along with discussing previous abortions which are implied to be a result of rape.
> 
> CW:  
> Implied past rape  
> Minor self harm  
> Dysmorphia, loss of trust in one’s body  
> Unwanted pregnancy  
> Pregnancy, mentions of childbirth and breastfeeding  
> Abortion (“medical” I.e. not surgical)  
> Blood  
> Menstruation  
> Isolation, loneliness  
> Vomit, morning sickness  
> Alcohol (and drinking while pregnant)  
> Reduced bodily autonomy  
> Caleb shitting in the woods.

Something is wrong with Beau’s body, which is wrong in of itself. Every fibre of muscle and every bone and ligament is what she made of it. They’ve never disagreed on something before.

She scratches at her skin until it beads with blood, but it doesn’t stop the itch. 

  
  


If she ignores it, it might go away.

Statistically speaking, it usually goes away. 

Her first missed period is its first true betrayal. 

It’s hard to pinpoint the cause of the nausea, if it’s chemical or psychological. She’s never not wanted something so badly. When it comes, she can’t  _not_ think of what her body has done to her. It might be morning sickness, it might be pure revulsion. 

Her breasts ache, against her consent, another act of violence. She takes to binding them down. It evens out the discomfort, mostly. A dull ache, all the time. 

She throws up in the bushes by the side of their camp. She throws up discreetly in the washroom of an inn. She throws up three feet from where Nott crept away from camp at night to piss, and that must be betrayal number two. It’s not bad enough to just betray her. It has to be public. And now there’s a witness. 

“Shut up. Don’t fucking say anything to anyone!” She snaps, because she can’t intimidate her own flesh but she can intimidate Nott, squatting behind a tree in a compromising position. 

“I’ll say nothing!” Nott has her hands out, placating.

She throws up on Nott’s shoes. 

It’s not just sickness. Her stomach is upset. Her head is spinning. Her gums bleed. That last is terrifying, like she’s falling apart at the seams. No one has ever sat her down and told her what to expect, and she’d never thought to find out. She’s prepared to pee more often, to be sick, to miss her period. No one ever told her her gums would bleed. 

“Beau, about the other day-“

“I said shut the fuck up, Nott.”

“Okay.”

She doesn’t want anyone to know. She never likes others to know she’s hurting, but this is the worst it’s ever been.

Of course they wouldn’t say anything. Jester or Yasha or Fjord or Caleb or Caduceus. But they would, say something. _We support you. It’s okay. We’ll help you._ The worst things to hear. 

_What’s happening to you is real.  
_

_You’re vulnerable and we’ve seen it._

Perhaps Caduceus can do something.  _Everything happens for a reason._ Or Jester.  _You take one, you give one_ _._ No. Jester wouldn’t say that to her. Caduceus wouldn’t either. But the more worked up she gets, the more vulnerable she’d have to make herself to tell them. And so long as no one reminds her of it - and she can ignore the gums and the vomiting and diarrhoea - she can still pretend it isn’t happening. 

Nott just has to shut up. 

“Are you okay, Beau? Something seems just... a little off.”

Of course Yasha has seen her. If she weren’t so distracted, she’d look right back. 

“Yeah, no, I’m fine. Are you okay?” Keep it casual. Light. 

“I think so.”

“Alright. Thanks for asking, though.” Keep it dismissive. 

She’s so tired.

She can’t sleep. 

She takes the forbidden flask from Yasha and drinks herself beyond drunk. That should show her body. That should show Nott, for thinking she could piss in the woods when Beau wanted privacy.

“Is everything okay, Beau?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just feel like a drink, you know?”

“Not really. Unless you want to drink with me?”

Yasha, soft and sweet and guilt ridden. 

“Alright.” 

There’s a moment, between the two of them, where Beau is drunk and swaying lightly, and Yasha is leaning close, quiet by the side of their camp, where there could have been a kiss. 

Beau turns away and vomits into the fire instead, too much booze becoming too much thick, acrid smoke. 

Yasha declines to give her the flask back the next day, even though Beau’s body can usually will a hangover away. 

“I don’t know if you’re the best person to have this right now, Beau. I feel like you’re still going through some things.”

“It’s fine. Whatever. I’m okay. Just forgot how easy it is to drink more than you think you’re drinking from that endless flask.” 

“If you say so. I’m here, though, if you wanted to talk.” Bites her lip, half smiles. They lost that kiss. 

“Thanks, Yasha.” It’s appreciated, and it isn’t. 

She gets up before dawn to throw up in peace, but apparently isn’t alone. 

“Beau-“

“Fuck off, Nott.” 

She refuses to take watch with her, to talk to her outside of a group conversation, in case she says something that makes it real. 

Whatever she buys from the apothecary, it does nothing at all. Perhaps she’s still immune to poison after all. Under her collar, the scratches have started to scar over. 

If she could just cast a fucking spell of her own, she could ask Dairon what to do. There must be a way, to get it out before it’s too late. 

Beau wants to crawl free of her own body, too. 

“This just had antimony and random herbs in,” Nott says quietly, holding the bottle. She’s followed Beau again, to a spot in the woods where she’d been about to inspect her underwear, in case it was just slow. “Enough to make you puke your guts up, but nothing that would do what you need.”

Beau’s first instinct is to slap her and make her shut up. But somehow the word  need stills her hand. Perhaps it was just unexpected. “What would you know?”

“My husband’s a chemist. I know things.” Nott’s eyes are glazed but bright. “I can help you.”

For a few moments, Beau rehearses a response.  _Prove it. Knock yourself out. This had better work_.  But another betrayal that came alongside the first is that she can’t keep it in, so she presses her palms to her leaking eyelids and tries not to cry. 

“Please.” She’s so tired. “Please.”

The next time they stay in an inn, Beau gets her own room. For company. She sends company away, and Nott comes by instead. 

“It’ll make you bleed. Heavily, for about a day, and then just like it’s your time.” 

Nott holds a vial that isn’t acid. It’s watery and dark, like the runoff from a brewery. 

“Are you sure it works?”

“It works.”

“How do you know?”

“...It works for halflings.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t regret this.”

“Not once it’s done.” 

The tears come against her wishes. Her body crying as she thwarts it’s treacherous plan. (She lies to herself. She’s terrified.)

She takes out the stopper and drinks it. 

(Nott holds her other hand).

Ten minutes. Twenty. No change. Her pants are stuffed with rags to catch blood that isn’t flowing.

“When will the bleeding come?”

“Give it an hour or so.”

“Did you make this a lot?”

“Yeza made it mostly. But not that often, no.”

“So this is the first time you made it?”

“No.”

Her stomach twists violently. She can’t tell if she’s going to shit herself or bleed, so she’s over a chamber pot when the blood begins to flow out of her like water, a thin, occasionally broken stream. 

Her insides feel like they’re twisting themselves apart. 

Her back aches and her belly spasms and she’s lying on the bed of the fancy inn, ruining the pristine sheets, Nott saying things she can hardly hear and holding clean rags to her as she sobs. 

She hasn’t cried like this in front of someone for years. She has cried. She hasn’t cried like this. 

She’s too tired to cry that hard for long. 

“Did someone rape you?” Nott has brought her water again and is sitting on the bed beside her. It’s the middle of the night. 

“What? No.” She curls in on herself as a horrible, pulling twist grips her insides, and feels a little like she’s lying, but no. 

Only biology had done this to her. 

Every ancestor behind her had done it, had at least one child, all the way from the start of time until Beau, and their blood had done this. Greedy, needy, desperate blood. It always gets what it wants. But Beau has always been a disappointment. 

Now the blood runs slower than before, out between her legs carrying its betrayal with it.

“I think it was Reani. From the timing.”

Nott doesn’t say anything. 

  
  


She sleeps, which is, she passes out, not from blood loss, but pain, and exhaustion, and the horror of it. 

When she wakes, she also wakes from the pain. 

Nott is dozing beside her on the bed, her eyes yellow reflective slits bouncing back light Beau can hardly see filtering in through the shuttered window. Dawn.

“Does it always hurt this bad?” Throat dry, voice cracked, chest aching. 

Nott’s eyes open a little wider and she shifts on the bed, sitting up and examining Beau’s hunched form. 

“It does. From my- ...It’s easier if you take it early on.”

She cuts herself off. Beau doesn’t stop her. It’s quiet after that.  


Nott pulls away at the bundled fabric between Beau’s legs - Nott’s old cape and hood - and it tugs her pubic hair in clots, a minor pain she realises, not worth wincing for when it might hurt her to do so. 

Beau looks, which is perhaps a mistake. Once she would have considered that an awful lot of blood. Lethal even, it would have panicked her. But she’s seen the lifeblood run out of someone before, and she knows that one person can contain an awful lot of it. (If Nott were panicking, she would be too.)

Nott refolds the cape, exposing unbloodied fabric, and tucks it back between Beau’s legs. 

“Have you taken it?” Beau feels a little stronger, later. Strong enough to ask that question, and not be the most vulnerable person in the room for a few minutes. “I didn’t get the feeling that you had so many friends at home who would talk about this with you.”

The worst is past. Nott brought her breakfast, and she was surprisingly able to eat some of it. The others thing she and Nott are shopping in the town. 

Nott is doing something unusual, perhaps even more out of place than making someone an abortion potion, which is to say she’s kneeling in her underwear by a basin of water, washing herself and her clothes, both of which are smeared with Beau’s blood. 

She doesn’t look up from where she’s scrubbing dried blood from her elbow. She responds on an odd inhale, apprehensive. “I’ve taken it.”

They say nothing more for a while.

“Did you make it? The one you took?” The pain has subsided now, the sensation of a morning star twisting her to pieces giving way to a sickening cramp. 

“I did, yes.” Nott rubs her hand over her mouth, a nervous reflex, pressing her lips against her teeth. She hasn’t been forthcoming, Beau doesn’t expect her to be, but she does continue. “The first time Yeza showed me how, and the second time I was by myself... You don’t need much to make it, if you don’t have a lot.”

“Were they his?” 

What a terrible question to ask. 

“They were not.”

“I can’t imagine taking this alone.” The thought is almost choking. She rests a hand on Nott’s knee. Solid. Warm. There. 

“It was a difficult time.”

“Were you scared?”  _I was scared._

Fingers pressed against her lips. “I was. But more scared of not taking it.”

Too long a time passes to be called a pause. 

Beau is drenched in sweat, tacky and sticky and the room is too humid from it. Every damn spot on her clothes and the bed could be blood, but isn’t. 

Nott cleans most of the room, except the spoiled sheets. She shakes them out as Beau sits up on the bed. The little vial flies free of them. Beau catches it before it can hit the wall. Hands it back. 

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” 

Nott turns it over in her fingers. 

“This one doesn’t work on goblins.”

Beau slows her breath before it can become a gasp. “Nott...”

Nott pockets it. “Other things do,” is all she says.

If there was anything to look at, besides the blood, Nott got rid of it before Beau could see it. 

She leaves a few platinum on the dresser of the room, to pay for everything she’s ruined, and walks away from the whole thing feeling like she’s lost a pint of blood and the weight of the world. 

“You seem better, Beau.” Jester takes one hand in both of hers. 

“I feel better.” Squeeze. Her fingers tingle a little. 

“I’m glad you worked whatever it was out. I was kind of getting a little worried, to be honest.”

“I’m okay, Jes.”

“Are you sure though? Because you said that before and then you tried to like, sell your life as a deal to a hag, so I just want to be sure you’re actually okay and not like, just saying that.” 

“I’m not going anywhere. I was just. Not feeling great, but now I’m good, okay?”

“Okay.” 

Her hand feels warm even after Jester let’s go. 

They talk about it sparingly after, only when they are alone. 

“You could have told Jester.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You could have told any of them.”

“Any of them could have heard it. I couldn’t tell it.”

Nott understands that, at least. She’s barely told Beau. 

It’s a big secret to hold between the two of them. 

It makes the other ones seem small. 

The heartache she feels pining for Jester is almost worth it, when every little touch and half-flirtation makes the old secrets seem big again. 

Those were lighter secrets to hold. 

It takes time to forgive her body, longer than it takes to return to normal.

Anger, cold and hot and steely. 

She’s surprised Nott doesn’t share her feelings. 

“I was never really angry with it. Not even this one,” she considers. “I was angry at... at other people. But not at me.”

“Not even a little bit? I mean, not that you should be.”

“Nope. I mean. The first time I was pregnant, it was Luc. I was happy. He was an easy pregnancy, and it was like a miracle my body could do that. Make a life. And then afterwards I nursed him, and that was nice too.”

“And the birth?”

“Oh god no, that was terrible.” But she laughs about it. “But I blame Luc for that one. I swear his head was already as big as it is now the day he was born. But he was perfect. Those other times... I didn’t get a choice. But I still  made Luc. Kept him safe. Sometimes I wish he were still in there, except I’m out here being reckless.”

Beau feels a pang of something. Perhaps the first and last pang of something that could have been. 

Nott waves a hand through the air, green skin and wiry muscle turning brown and soft and round. Teetering on the edge of asking Caleb to change her again. 

“I guess that is kind of amazing.” She takes Nott’s hand and squeezes it. Fingers longer and slimmer and sharper than Veth’s little hands. “Whatever you decide, I’m glad you were here, when you were. Y’know.”

Nott squeezes back and smiles. Veth’s smile is soft and kind, a look it’s hard for Nott to achieve with her teeth, sharp and shiny. Enough to make Beau wonder just how different a person she could be, just by virtue of appearance. A complete shift. Not different at all, maybe. 

“Me too.”

  
  


Early morning, it’s cold outside the dome. She needs to piss. 

Passing Caleb making his way sheepishly back inside, she has a moment of panic at being spotted, before she realises she isn’t nauseous. Hasn’t been for a few weeks. She feels good, strong, her own. 

She picks a bush that isn’t too close to the one Caleb just fertilised and squats behind it. 

Blood, bright and reassuring. 

She wipes herself, longing for a shower, and thinks,  _nice try_. 

**Author's Note:**

> Why did I write this, you ask?  
> I have no idea.  
> This is the third total rewrite where I changed the whole style.
> 
> This is NOT an invitation to chat about the morality of abortion.


End file.
